Half-Breed - Crimson Dragon Series
by Dnachanger
Summary: Follow the story of a thief who gains magical powers, but is then sentenced to death. Only one person can save him. The one person he knows the least about.
1. Chapter 1 - Judgement

Chapter 1 – Judgement

**Elgar**

The Whiterun guards' pay day was looked forward to by merchants and pickpockets alike. But one pickpocket had an extra trick up his sleeve.

Elgar had been found in a gutter by a passing thief who had taken pity, and seen that the child could help with pickpocketing. From the moment he could walk he had been taught to steal, pick locks and lie. The Thief, Furis, had always seemed like a father, until Elgar's true gifts came forth.

As Elgar stood waiting for the signal from Furis he felt a strange feeling on the back of his neck. '_I'm being watched' _he panicked in his mind. His senses had never failed before. He swung his head round looking for anything out of the ordinary, but nothing look different and nothing moved either. Elgar slowly turned his head back to face the main plaza.

Furis ran into the middle of the main plaza and yelled "Thief, Thief!"

The effect was instant. All the guards immediately tapped their various pockets for their gold. Elgar saw a guard tap his trouser pocket and smiled to himself. '_This is way too easy_' he thought to himself. He levelled his arm parallel to the ground and dug in to himself for his Power. It greeted him like an old friend. He drew it out of his body and forced it towards the guard. He pushed his Power in to the pocket and felt for a coin.

He found one on the top. He gripped it with his Power and, with a casual flick of his wrist; he brought the coin towards him. It stopped dead half way. Confused, he drew more of his Power and he pulled on it again; it would not budge. He pulled again with more force; same result. He could sense that the Power that held it there was more powerful than all his Power combined. He gave up and looked around to find the source.

Stood in the entrance of an alley, was a man dressed in black leather armour with a black cape and hood, obscuring his face. It seemed as if the shadows crawled along his clothes, so it was impossible see where he ended and the darkness began.

"Oi!"

As Elgar turned to the shout, he saw the Shadow-Man disappear. The guard had turned round and was pointing at Elgar, his eyes flickering between the still levitating coin and Elgar.

"Run, Elgar!" yelled Furis from behind the guard. As Elgar span round to flee, he saw Furis get grabbed by two guards. He ran down the alley where he had seen the Shadow-Man.

The labyrinth of streets in Whiterun was no secret to Elgar. He ran round corner after corner until he came to a part of town he did not know. He sped round a corner and found himself at dead end. He turned to go back and saw four guards closing in on him. One was the guard he tried to steal from. Elgar backed up until he felt the cold rock wall on his back. He was stuck; the wall was too high to climb.

He resorted to the last choice: fight.

He felt with his Power to a pebble on the floor and gripped. He flung his arm up and sent the stone towards the approaching guard's helmet. The pebble hit its mark and his helmet rattled as the guard fell over unconscious.

The next guard took his place, hesitantly. Elgar swung his fist at the guard's chin. The guard caught it half way and twisted it round and behind Elgar. Elgar gasped with pain but the guard would not stop. He felt his arm being pulled up and realised that the guard was not going to stop until his arm was dislocated.

What happened next was not controlled by Elgar, but formed by his Power. A stone shot past his face and hit the guard on the bridge of the nose. The strain on his arm released instantly.

He spun on the spot to confront the final two guards. He reached with his Power and grabbed two stones simultaneously. He levelled both his arms and the stone rocketed past and hit the guards squarely on the front of their helmets. Both guards hit the floor at the same time.

Elgar looked around him; three guards were unconscious with dents in the front of their helmets and the final was rolling around on the floor, crying with pain, clutching his bloody, broken nose.

Elgar stepped back towards the entrance of the alley. Inside his mind he was panicking. _'Calm down,' _he thought, _'what would Furis do.'_ Slowly he formed a plan in his mind._ 'First I need to get to the safe house pick up a few things and then break out Furis. Then we can go to Riften or Falkreath.'_

Assured that he knew what he need to do, he cautiously stepped out of the alley and swung his head up and down the adjoining street. Clear. He jogged quickly across the street the opposite side shadows to conceal himself.

He just entered the shadows when his whole body froze, his limbs would not respond to him. Then, darkness.

* * *

He awoke with a start and sat up and looked around him.

He was in a small room with three brick walls and one wall, which was just metal bars, in the room there was only the bed. For a second he couldn't remember why he was here. Then it all came flooding back to him. He quickly moved the door and felt around his chest, and heard a faint jangling from outside the jail.

He groaned as he looked up in despair and saw the guard, whose nose he had broken, stood in front of him, shaking a few lock picks and a piece of string.

"How stupid do you think we are?" said the guard. Elgar opened his mouth to reply, and then thought better of it when he saw the anger on the guards face. Elgar stood up and walked back to the bed and flopped down on to his back. After a few minutes of unretaliated insults the guard walked off.

Elgar lay there for a long while, with thoughts of Furis, the broken-nose guard and the mysterious Shadow-Man.

After an hour of simply his thoughts for company, he heard the footsteps of at least three people coming to his cell. The door was thrown open and two guards stepped forward with some steel cuffs that seemed to glitter with a kind of purple sheen. As soon as they forced him to turn around and put on the cuffs they put a black hood over his head. For the first time in two years his Power was out of his reach. He could sense it but could not get to it.

He was forced around and up some stairs until he was forced to his knees and his hood was ripped off his head. The light of the torches was blinding after the dim interior of the jail. He saw Furis next to him, who gave a sharp nod. He looked in front of him and saw Jarl Balgruuf sat in front of him.

"You two have made a mockery of my guards," he said "that cannot be tolerated. I have passed judgement for each of you separately. First to you, Furis son of Igor, I sentence you to banishment." A guard came towards Furs and undid his normal rope binds. Furis stood and rubbed his wrists. He expected the guard to unlock Elgar's cuffs, but when he simply stood back in line with the other guards he realised that Elgar was not coming with him.

"Beggin' y'pardons Sire, but whateve' y'do to Elgar y'do to me," He said.

"So be it," The Jarl said and motioned to the guard holding a bow next to him. The guard, in one fluid motion, nocked an arrow, pulled back and released the arrow in to Furis' neck. He was dead before he hit the ground. Elgar, with his mouth open, stared into Furis' cold and empty eyes hoping that he would come back to life.

"To you, Elgar son of none, I sentence you to death for being a rouge mage and endangering the people of Whiterun."

The broken-nose guard stepped forward with a two handed axe in his hands. He stopped beside Elgar and lifted the axe into the air. Elgar took one last look into Furis' eyes.

* * *

**This is my first story. I'm not gonna bother with the whole "Don't Criticise" thing. I want to hear what you think, either good or bad.  
I know some of you are guessing who is Elgar's father. I can tell you this; it will be revealed in the end and, unless you're super duper smart, you will not expect it.**

**I'd like to say thanks to both The Stann for being apart of the creation of this Story and to that ever anonymous Lore-Master.**

**P.S There are a ton of OCs in this.**


	2. Chapter 2 - Free

**Christmas is here!**

**I was going do another TSTTC chapter as well but me being me I didn't get round to writing this until Sunday. Then i had to beta.**

**This chapter was betaed solely by the Lore-Master this time, so extra thanks to his ever anonymous but.**

**P.S Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please review. I want to hear what you think even if it is "I hate this F****** story, it's F****** S***."**

**Any way enough babbling(hehe, I like that word, I think I will use it more often) read and - hopefully - enjoy.**

* * *

Chapter 2 – Free

**Elgar**

"STOP!"

Elgar glanced, with green tear-filled eyes, behind him and stared at who stood in the now open door-way. The Shadow-Man.

The broken-nose guard was holding the axe in the air looking at the Jarl questioningly, who gestured for him to move back in line with the other guards, when a man in blue mage robes walked out of the shadows and stood next to the Jarl, with his hood back, showing a middle aged nord man.

"Who dares enter my hall in the middle of a sentencing," shouted Balgruuf, rising from his chair, face red with fury.

"I am Ragnar Telvanni, ex-Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, and the fifth of the Inner Circle of the Crimson Dragons" said the Shadow-Man, pulling back his hood revealing a dunmer with piercing red eyes and a scar running from under his left eye to his chin, and held out his left forearm displaying and intricate tattoo of a dragon breathing fire and his left palm showing a dragon eating its own tail. The combined expression, of the rich and wealthy, in Dragonsreach ranged from wide eyed to face pale with pure terror, one especially fragile-looking women fainted but was caught by a tall nord who must have been her husband. Even the man in blue robes looked worried.

Only the Jarl looked confused at the silence in the hall, only broken by one or two gasps. After a while the Jarl, evidently frustrated by his obvious incomprehension, asked Ragnar, "Who are these Crimson Dragons and who is your leader?"

"My Jarl, the Crim-," started the man in blue robes, before the Jarl cut him off. "Silence Farengar. I want to hear to from him."

Ragnar had stood silent, but now he spoke.

"You have asked two questions and so I will answer them in order. The Crimson dragons are an organisation dedicated to protecting mundus, and its inhabitants, from destruction. That is the short answer, I fear. As for who is our leader, well that is simple, Fero Darkenstone."

Even the Jarl looked fearful half a second before he covered it over again.

"W-what do you want."

"I wish to take the boy as my apprentice, if he wishes, and if not then I will set him free with no bounty." The Jarl listened to this and went silent, all in the hall watching him, until Farengar leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Balgruuf straitened in his chair and then spoke.

"You may take the boy, but no matter what he is not allowed to enter my city again."

Ragnar nodded, "Understood, and may I have the keys to his cuffs." The broken-nose guard, after receiving a nod from the Jarl, started to inch forward at a snail pace, key held out-stretched. Irritated by the slow pace, Ragnar rolled his eyes and muttered a curse of some sort under his breath. The key flew out of the broken-nose guard's grasp and into Ragnar's waiting hand. The broken-nose guard staggered back holding onto his right wrist as if it was broken, his face petrified.

Ignoring the gasps and stares from all around the hall, Ragnar knelt down and slotted the key into the enchanted cuffs. Once they were off Elgar rubbed his wrists and rose as Ragnar did, who turned to face Farengar, holding the cuffs in his left hand.

"Your work is really slipping of late, Farengar." Then the cuffs just turned to dust, which Ragnar threw in the fire. Ragnar then spun on the spot and marched out of the hall, Elgar following close behind. Ragnar walked down the stone steps and through all of Whiterun, till he and Elgar stood outside the stables.

Elgar hadn't noticed before, because he was kept in a cell, but it was night time now and both of Nirn's moons were clearly visible, with the green lights in sky flowing back and forth like a green sea. Ragnar walked to the second carriage, further down the road, which Elgar had never noticed before. Ragnar nodded at the waiting driver, an imperial with sandy blonde hair and ocean blue eyes, and stepped up onto the carriage. He turned to face Elgar.

"Now you must make a choice. To join me as my apprentice you will have to leave this city and probably never return to a normal life ever again, but you will learn great magics that very few have ever learnt. Or you could walk away right now. I would give you the money you need to leave here and buy a house somewhere else and start a shop of your own in an honest life. The choice is yours alone to make.

Elgar stood still as he thought about the choice he had been thrust into. In his mind he debated the choice repeating the same points in his head over and over again, but in the end it came down to one thing. _'Furis is dead and nothing is going to bring him back.' _ Slowly he levelled his gaze with Ragnar. "I have nothing here for me anymore and a life alone would be hell. I accept your offer." Ragnar simply nodded and beckoned for him to get into the carriage.

When Elgar sat down the carriage started moving east along the road, slowly moving away from Whiterun, the only home he had ever known. After a long silence Ragnar spoke in a low voice. "Before we get to my home, there is one matter I wish to resolve."

"What matter?"

"Your name."

"What? Well, I'm called El-"

"Not your old name, but your new name. You think I was born named Ragnar; no I was named Rusos, meaning high birth. I chose my name from the bard's tale "Ragnar the Red". He was a failed warrior who was killed and I chose this name to remember that failure will kill you. You must pick a new name."

"Why? So I forget my old life. If so I want off this carriage now."

"No, dear Magnus, no. You must not forget your old life, for you if you do you will forget who you are. Men say that you must forget the past, they are fools. We must learn history so we will not make the same mistakes. So now that is sorted, what is your new name?"

Elgar thought for a moment but then the choice was clear.

"Libero."

"Meaning free. Good choice. Now get some sleep, the trip is quite long." He said as he leant beneath the bench and picked up a pillow and threw it at the newly named Libero. Libero caught the pillow and lay down on the bench and closed his eyes.

As he slowly drifted to sleep his thoughts kept returning to the image of Furis' cold and empty eyes. When he finally slept his dreams were plagued with a question. Did he make the right choice?

* * *

**Ragnar**

For a while Ragnar sat there in silence and watched the country side fade past. He finally looked at the sleeping form of Libero. The boy had gone through too much in too little time. Ragnar finally got a good look at his new apprentice's finer features. He had long coal black hair with, now closed, intelligent and quick green eyes. _'The eyes of a thief' _Ragnar thought. The teenager had sharp jaw. Not concave with hunger or convex with fat, but just sharp. His ears were flat against his head. His body was near free of fat but he was muscled enough to handle himself in a brawl. His fingers were thin and long but strong. _'The fingers of a thief'_

After a while of silence, only broken by the trot of the two chestnut horses and the wind, Jarvis, Ragnar's personal carriage driver, turned round and asked Ragnar a question. At first Ragnar did not hear what he had said, so Jarvis had to repeat the question.

"Are you sure about that one, Sir" asked Jarvis. Many who met Jarvis thought he was an uncomprehending carriage driver. They found out they were incorrect quickly. He could sweet talk his way out of a prison after stealing in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses or persuade an angry war veteran into _not _chopping off his head, and he probably had.

Ragnar sighed. "I don't know Jarvis, I don't know."

Many hours later when the sun had risen, they arrived. After going round the throat of the world, passing Riverwood, Helgen and Ivarstead, they had crossed the Eastmarch and had finally come to the Velothi Mountains.

**Libero**

* * *

He awoke in an unfamiliar, small room. At first he just sat there and looked around the room. The room was made out of a white rock, which seemed to of been carved from a single block, instead of bricks. There was a desk, two cupboards and a bed. There were two doors, one that led outside and one that led to a room with a basin . On the desk there were some folded clothes.

Libero walked over to the clothes and found a note on top.

_When you wake up wash yourself in the bath, put in these clothes and meet me in the main hall, which is east of your room, for the morning meal._

Libero walked slowly into the bath room. There was only a toilet and a basin. Libero moved slowly to the basin and found that it had a pump, which must have gone to a lake of some sort. When he pumped it only freezing cold water came out. He slowly washed his face and under his arms, shivering every time the water touched his skin. After he had washed all of his body he put on the new clothes, at first they were quite big but then they shrunk to perfect size. The trousers clung to his thighs and calves, but it did not constrict his joints or the … private areas, which were covered by his leather undergarment. The shirt stuck to his torso and half way down his arms, like a second skin to the point where Libero couldn't tell it was there. The final piece of clothing was some thick hide boots, reaching half way up his calves, that were black as night, like the rest of his clothes.

He pushed open the door and was confronted by a cold gust of mountain wind. The clothes seemed to buffet the wind, but left his face unprotected. He walked his way to the main hall, which was around fifth teen meters east of his room. When he got to the roughly four meter tall, solid oak, doors, he pushed them open and was met by a long table and a warm fire. He saw Ragnar reading a book at the far end of the table. As he walked to the table, the doors shut behind him.

He span on the spot and was met by the torso of a huge nord. He was well over seven foot with brown hair and, almost black, brown eyes. Libero walked back wards in fear but the giant simply stood there and stared at him. When Libero finally backed all the way to Ragnar, he turned to face him, conscious of the giant still staring at him.

"Um, Ragnar…" He said after a long silence. Ragnar's eyes flickered from his book and stared at Libero. "Sir," he corrected, "can I eat?"

"Sit and eat, while I think."

Gladly, Libero sat and started to eat the beef stew that was in the bowl in front of him. When he was finished Ragnar put down his book and spoke.

"How much magic do you know, Libero?"

"Not much, sir. Just lifting things."

"Like with the coin?"

Libero winced and then nodded. "Yeah like the coin."

"Show me."

Libero looked around for something to lift and saw the book that Ragnar had been reading; he stretched out his arm and drew into his Power. He book slowly rose off the table until it was level with Ragnar's eyes. Ragnar nodded and Libero dropped the book.

"Now we come to your further education in magic. I will teach you the schools of destruction, alteration, restoration, conjuration and enchanting. You will be taught alchemy by one of my old friends and illusion by another. Both are masters of their fields. Now for your schedule.

You will wake at six am. Then you will have half an hour to bathe and wash your clothes. The water needed will be made by you having to run to the edge of the weather ward of my home and then melting the snow found there. At seven you will meet here for the morning meal. From eight to ten you will learn to read and write, and when you can you will have that time to read the history of Tamriel, Skyrim and magic. Then I will teach you some sword craft and archery skills for two hours. Then we will break for an hour for lunch. After lunch is finished, you will spend six hours learning magic. After that we will eat for the evening meal and then you will have free time to do as you will until ten pm, when you must turn in for the night.

Any questions?"

"If you have a weather ward, why was it windy outside?"

"When I leave my house the magic that supports is kept in soul gems. Recently there have been some storms up here so the gems have been completely drained. Anymore?"

"No. Well yes."

"What is it?"

"What's up with him?" Libero said gesturing behind him at the giant.

"He is a werewolf." Ragnar said plainly, but continued after Libero's eyes widened in fear. "When he was a boy, of about seven, he contracted the disease. His parents left him in a forest to die. He lived in that forest for nearly ten years, hunting deer and living with wolves. Over that time he gained control of his beast form. I found him and helped him as much as I could, but he was unwilling to revert to human form. When one of the moons is full, he has to leave the mansion to hunt. I do not know his name, he will not tell me or he simply does not remember. He likes being called The Butler. But do not worry he is capable of controlling himself. Right, now that is sorted, I shall you round my – I mean our – home."

For half an hour Ragnar showed Libero around the area he lived in. All the buildings were separated from each other, each with a purpose. He had an armoury (stocked with every type of sword, bow, and arrows), an arena with sand floor, the main hall, a room for Libero, a room for himself, a room The Butler, stables (where Jarvis slept), cellars, a safe room and a vault.

When Libero went to bed that night, he couldn't sleep.


End file.
